


Five ways Asgardians differ from humans (and one way they're the same)

by Kayasurin



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Aliens are different, But not always, F/M, Fighting, Focus on Thor, Joker Cameo, Mention of Valkyries, Not Betaed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:19:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayasurin/pseuds/Kayasurin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title says it all. Five ways Thor is different from humans, and one way he's no different from any other man.<br/>Drugs, Love, Gender Expectations, Beauty, Entertainment, and Illness.<br/>Unedited</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five ways Asgardians differ from humans (and one way they're the same)

**Five ways Asgardians differ from humans (and one way they're the same)**

1\. Drugs

To say the bad guy of the week was having slight financial difficulties was something of an understatement. Tony had seen more sophisticated equipment in Afghanistan- in a destroyed town, and not in the hands of the bad guys.

The ropes were pretty spectacular, though. As was the lovely bomb strapped to Natasha's neck, with the threat of El Psycho pushing the button if Bruce looked slightly green.

As for everyone else... Tony had been tied up, and so had Clint. Cap looked like someone had tried to mummify him and given up only because they ran out of stuff to tie him with. He also looked furious, but all the struggling in the world wasn't going to get him immediately out of the wrapping.

Natasha had been handcuffed to a pole, the bomb strapped to her neck like a really ugly choker. Bruce had also been handcuffed, to a pole opposite Natasha.

Thor had been tied up, but loosely, since he also had a morphine drip going straight into the big vein in his neck, and he'd also been hit on the head with half a building, so.

Oh, yeah, and they were stuck in an empty warehouse.

"Could you get any more cliche?" Tony asked.

El Psycho, whose name was something dull and boring like John or Jack or maybe Jake, who knows, turned and scowled at him. "I can always blow her up if you annoy me too much, too," he said, sounding much more like a whiny kid than an evil genius.

Natasha glared at the guy. If there was any justice in the world, El Psycho would've collapsed into a pile of primordial goo and begged for her forgiveness, right before spontaneously combusting.

Sadly, that wasn't one of Natasha's powers, and El Psycho was keeping out of kicking range.

Tony sighed, and looked over at El Psycho's lab, tucked away in a corner. "Why are there smiley face balloons tied to your chair?"

"I like them. Besides, they make people want to smile. Don't you like smiling?"

Oh, yeah. El Psycho had come up with a lethal version of laughing gas. You laughed until you died because you couldn't breathe anymore.

"Look," Tony began, but he got cut off.

Thor had woken up. Loudly.

"My cousin!" he bellowed, standing up and completely wrecking the ropes he'd been tied with. Also dislodging the IV in his neck, but the Asgardian prince didn't seem to notice the blood not exactly spurting but very heavily leaking down his neck.

Said prince proceeded to grab El Psycho in a bear hug Tony knew from personal experience was painful as hell, and squeeze.

El Psycho dropped the controller for the bomb on Natasha's neck. Everyone except Natasha- and Thor, who was _giggling_ \- breathed a sigh of relief. Natasha just growled.

"Thor, leave me something to stab," she said, very clearly speaking through gritted teeth.

"No," Thor said. He sounded like a petulant child. "I will keep him and call him George and we shall have many adventures among the giant tea cups and white rabbits."

Tony blinked; blinked again. "Huh," he said. "Okay, before we continue, morphine makes Thor loopy. We should pass that on to the medical staff. Bruce?"

Bruce sighed, shrugged, and shifted into a giant, green rage beast. Said rage beast looked bemused, looking around for the things to smash, but only seeing his teammates tied up, and one of them hugging a frantically struggling El Psycho while talking about 'George' and 'tea cups'.

Tony sighed. He didn't have enough caffeine or alcohol in his blood to deal with this right now.

2\. Love

"I'm just trying to understand."

"I'm not certain what is so difficult, Jane."

"Three days. And most of them I spent yelling at you."

"Aye, but you had just cause."

"And I hit you with a car. Twice."

A chuckle. "I got in your way. And I deserved it."

"Thor. Please. Just- how can you be so sure you love me?"

"Are you saying you do not feel the same?"

"...I think I do. It's just- three days? ... Thor, at least part of my motivation, at the beginning, was to open a gateway to another world. To prove to the rest of the scientific community that I wasn't actually a complete crazy person. That I was attracted to you was just... part of what kept me focused. It was only after I spent more time with you that I knew it wasn't just a crush."

"A... crush?"

"You know. An attraction based on someone's appearance and what little you know of their personality. It fades in time, or when you get to know the person and they don't turn out to be what you thought they'd be like."

"And you... only felt this crush, for me?"

"Believe me, what I feel now is a lot stronger."

"Ah." A sigh. "Jane, what I felt for you, from the very first... I assure you, there is no change to my emotions, save that I understand them, and you, better now."

"Really."

"It is an Asgardian thing, I think. We know from the first who we are fated to spend the rest of our lives with. My parents were so, my grandparents were so, and all pairings in Asgard are so."

"Love at first sight?"

"Love at first car crash, perhaps." He reached out, and took her hand. "Aye, at first sight. Even if I didn't recognize it."

3\. Gender Expectations

Thor ignored the looks the women were giving him, the same way he ignored Darcy's quiet giggles behind him. Not to say he didn't heed them, no, but did not let them affect him.

He felt the yarn between two fingers, then studied the odd packaging. "What does acrylic mean?" he murmured to Darcy.

"That it was made in a factory, not by a sheep. That's good though, Jane's allergic to full on wool."

"Ah." He nodded, and frowned at the color. A warm honey. He tucked the skein of yarn into the tiny basket Darcy had found for him, and added three more skeins of the same color. Then he moved on to the next shelf, where the honey had turned to harvest gold, and found more 'acrylic' yarn of the right colors.

There were so many shades to the yarn, it was hard to restrain himself to only one basket. He wanted them all, greens and blues and reds and purples, golds and browns, white and black.

But no, he had promised the Lady Darcy he would restrict himself in this shop.

"I require needles," he said, and straightened to his full height. "Which aisle do you suppose they be in?"

"Let's go this way." Darcy tucked one hand into the crook of his arm. "So, you knit?"

"Aye. My father taught me. It is a fine skill, when one is passing the long winter's nights."

"Huh. Can you cook, clean, and sew, too?"

"Aye, of course. Can the men of Midgard not?"

"They're typically pretty proud they can't. Lots of people think that sort of thing's girly, like knitting."

Thor snorted, his already low opinion of most Midgardian men sinking a little further. "And I suppose women do not fight?"

"It's not the thing to do. Not," Darcy added, 'polishing' her knuckles on her shirt, "that I care about that."

"I will admit," Thor said, bending to scrutinize the different kinds of knitting needles the way he'd done the yarn, "that I do not understand Midgard."

"Gender stereotypes," Darcy said. Thor pretended he understood what that meant.

4\. Beauty

Natasha wondered if there was any time to get Foster to a shower before the boys arrived.

The tower had been attacked. Unsurprising. Natasha had taken care of most of the intruders, Stark's crazed minion-robots had gotten one between the three of them, using various weapons such as fire extinguishers and just being plain creepy.

Foster had picked up a chair and started bashing. From her form, Natasha could tell Foster had experience with bar fighting.

Unfortunately, being ready and able to wallop someone over the head with a chair didn't translate to looking immaculate while doing it. Or after doing it. Foster was sweaty and breathing hard, and her hair had straggled out of the already rough ponytail to straggle in uneven chunks around her face. Someone had gotten lucky and punched Foster in the face, so one cheekbone was turning dark blue. Someone else had gotten lucky and sliced her arm; Natasha had kicked _that_ one in the back of the head, knocking him well and out.

Natasha, in contrast to Foster, hadn't been hit once, and apart from a _very_ slight sheen of sweat, didn't have so much as a hair out of place.

But the boys were coming back now, Jarvis having sounded the alert, and the last thing a boyfriend wanted to see was his girlfriend looking like she'd just finished a fight. The blood might just send Thor into a protective, berserker rage, and then they wouldn't have any intruders left alive to question.

Natasha had only just stepped forward when Thor landed on Tony's launch pad out on the patio, though. He must have flown in order to get here faster than the others.

"My Jane!" He stepped over the body of one of the unconscious thugs. "Sir Jarvis was kind enough to describe your battle to me! You must have been the very image of a Valkyrie, fierce and untameable!"

Then he swept the poor, bedraggled scientist into his arms and kissed her. Very thoroughly.

Natasha smirked, and looked around for a non-broken piece of furniture to sit on. It figured a warrior prince would approve of his lady's battle skills.

5\. Entertainment

"Thor." Clint poked the alien in the side of the head. "Thor!"

"Mm?"

"Dude. You're watching a poetry contest."

"Aye."

"On TV."

"Aye."

"You had Jarvis record it."

"This is true. Is there a reason, my friend, why you ask these questions?"

"I guess it's all leading up to this one: why?"

"They are fascinating skalds. The stories they tell are quite gripping."

"Is this one of those Asgardian things?"

"I suspect it must be, yes."

"Huh. Funny, I would have thought you'd approve of football."

"There is not enough blood in your Midgardian sports. I will listen to the skalds instead."

"Okay. And on that note, I'm going to warn Tony about the team football game he's trying to set up against the rest of SHIELD. Have fun!"

+1 Illness

"I do not approve of this... cough medicine." Thor glowered at the bottle Phil was currently brandishing.

"That may be so, but it's the only stuff that doesn't make you... loopy." Phil sighed a little at the description; crazy was better, but that word carried connotations that no one really liked.

"It tastes bad."

And now it was time for the petulant child part of the illness. Phil let a little of his irritation show.

"You may have fruit juice to get rid of the taste. But you need to take your medicine."

Thor opened his mouth- and then sneezed into his hands.

"And wash your hands."

"How do Midgardians stand this illness?"

"Hands. Wash. Then medicine."

Thor looked sulky, but moved to comply with Phil's orders.

Phil reflected, momentarily, that the medical team hadn't brought him back from the dead five times just so he could deal with a cranky Asgardian struck down by the common cold, but apparently that was what he was dealing with.

"You get two tablespoons," Phil said, once Thor had dragged himself back to the table. "Then you get to watch all the poetry contests you want." He winced a little at that. Exactly where Thor had found broadcasted poetry contests... Jarvis had probably helped.

"And juice." Thor glowered from bleary eyes.

"And juice." Phil doled out the first half of the dose, and held the spoon out for Thor to take.

The Asgardian swallowed the first spoonful, and grimaced. "This is disgusting!"

"But you'll be able to breathe through your nose. Here, the second, then you may have your juice."

"Is this a weapon created by some villain I might smite?"

"Alas, no. It's the common cold. Get your juice and go watch your poetry contests now."

Thor sighed, and sneezed again.


End file.
